Hello, readers. What follows is the first chapter of "FRACTURED TIME" a collection of short stories soon to be published, somewhere. -Jon David Welland

FRACTURED TIME
THEORUM #1

Serendipity, or the idea of meaningful coincidences, has begun to receive input from an unexpected quarter. Skeptical scientists have taken aim on events of such profound meaning that some call them miracles. First, they defined a miracle as an event that has a one in a million chance of occurring, then they proceeded to say that events in an individuals life occur so often that it is statistical fact that a miraculous event will occur at least once every month.

The biggest mistake in this train of logic is the use of the word ‘miracle’. Calling it so places it in a context that goes beyond science and mathematics. It implies that all meaningful coincidences are of a positive and beneficial nature. Sometimes such events are not good at all, and are considered a awful run of bad luck that can cause some hapless soul to ask “why me?”

If such a conjunction of unlikely events can happen to anyone, at any time, then how many people in our mental hospitals and in our prisons are in fact victims of this phenomena? What does all this do to our reality, when it is a fact now that unlikely events are very likely to happen?

CASE #1
Honor Among Thieves

She hung up the phone and reached for her smokes. As she took a drag pondered her next move, the next stage in an A-one con. She had a pair of teary eyed, bereaved parents on the hook They thought she was their long lost daughter, who had vanished one night through an unlocked window in their suburban home. Who knows what happened to her? She was dead at the hands of some pervert, probably. So the child surely wouldn’t mind someone using her name to drain her parent’s bank account dry.

Rejoicing in her cleverness she reclined on her couch and counted the days until the money came pouring in. A cool autumn breeze wafted through her open window, rustling the old newspapers that coated the floor of her basement apartment. The light of the city shone through the windowpane on her bloodshot eyes. For her, at the moment, all was right in the world.

She barely noticed the sound of footsteps in the hall. Just some late-night customers of the dealer down the hall, she thought, nothing to do with her. Then with a thundering sound, then frame of her door began to give away. The second blow blew it asunder in a hail of wood splinters and two men invaded her room. The first came flying in after throwing his prodigious weight against the door. He was over seven feet tall with the frame of a tank, but was dressed in slacks and tweed, giving the impression he was a librarian or teacher. His dark, intelligent eyes seemed to pierce her straight through her skin.

A man of average build with a sparse beard closely followed him. He was dressed in a leather bomber jacket, kaki clothing and army boots. He had the air of someone used to handling the automatic pistol he had trained on her head.

She was roughly thrown on the floor, and with the gun held on her head, her arms were bound and a burlap bag was manhandled over her head. After staggering out of the building, guided by a rough grip on each of her arms, she was thrown in the trunk of a car.

Before the trunk door slammed shut with finality, she heard one man say to the other, “Hey Mouse, is the stage all set?”

“Yes, life is going to imitate art” was the reply.

The black sedan then roared off and merged into the dark city.

Two days earlier, the man who was responsible for these events, and many more to follow, sat is his car as it slowly snaked its way through the column of cars lined up at the customs booth, waiting to be granted entry into the United States. He breathed the noxious fumes spewing from the crowd of idling vehicles deeply, filled with intense anxiety over the coming search.

By the time he rolled up to the border guard, he reeked with fear and apprehension. This, and other less subtle cues, sent clear signals to the guard. After showing his identification, the guard returned to the crossing station and keyed in his social security number. His face appeared on the screen immediately. He was younger then, and sported a black eye he received while resisting arrest. The cop had actually taken a shot at him when he called the officer a pig. He was found guilty of possession of a small amount of hashish, served time, but never bothered to get a pardon.

In short order he was asked to step out of his car. He was forced to sit in a shaky chair, with an armed guard standing so close that his gut, which hung out over his beltline, was only an inch away from his face. Trained dogs were led in to sniff him and his car. Strange devices scanned his car for traces of drugs, explosives or radioactive material. His bags were turned inside out and emptied on the ground so they could poke through his belongings with long metal poles.

Then he was unceremoniously led to a small room were a guard with the appearance and manners of a large toad snapped on a pair of latex gloves and probed every crevice and opening on his naked body.

After a long pregnant pause as files were consulted and everything was double checked, they told him he was free to go and returned him to his car. The metal bar across the highway was lifted and he was welcomed to the country.

As he sped his way through the tree-lined road that snaked through the woods of Maine, He picked his Fleetwood Mac CD off the floor of his car, where the guards had left it. Checking inside, he found the DVD containing his contraband recording was still intact. He kissed it and let out a roar of victory. He thought he had it made.

The car was traveling too fast and taking sharp turns. It buffeted her bound form as she struggled to free her arms, only straining her muscles and tightening the bonds until they dug into her skin and drew blood. When the car rolled to a brief stop, she began to kick the roof of the truck with one of her free legs until it sprung open. She stumbled out of the car and began to run, but her head was still covered, and shaking her head and neck violently failed to work it free.

Sightless, she stumbled a few steps and then fell and rolled into a ditch that lined some nameless highway. She struggled to her feet and once again tried to flee, this time tripping on a tree root and landing on her burlap coated face.

The men were there. Two arms grabbed her a pulled her up. She began to kick blindly at her captors and throwing her weight to and fro. Her efforts didn’t free her from a grip that was like a vice, but one of her kicks connected with one of their groins. One cursed as the other laughed. Soon she was back in the trunk, with her legs bound as tightly as her arms.

After a twelve- hour, red-eyed drive into Boston he found himself in a load and crowded basement tavern. After dropping a twenty at the bar, he found his contact sitting alone and nursing a Black Russian in the back of the bar. He sat quietly, taking in the life that was going on around him without any real interest. He seemed very old with well- worn features and was dressed in expensive clothing worn in a careless, haphazard fashion.

He sat in the chair on the opposite side of the table. His contact fixed him with a freezing glance that cut him to the bone, sneered and said. “Go fuck yourself.”

He gathered up his courage and said, “Russ sent me.”

This provoked an expression of intense interest in his otherwise hostile demeanor He narrowed his eyes and peered at him for a long moment. “Russ, eh? It’s been a long time since he sent any business my way. Did he tell you about the bank job?”

“No.” he replied.

It was hard to tell whether he was amused or disappointed “Oh, well, I guess it doesn’t matter. What can I do for you? “

“I need to see the ‘Movie Man’.” It was a mouthful, but he managed to say it with a sense of conviction, disguising his apprehension

“What’s in it for me?”

“A cut.”

He silently weighed the offer for a moment, then rose from his seat and said, “Follow me.”

He was then led through a corridor, past washroom doors, which wafted the odor of urine and vomit his way, and then through a well- camouflaged door and up a flight of stairs that bent under his feet making a labored sound that made him feel that they would collapse under his weight. Then he was ushered into a cyber-playroom full of columns of VCRs and DVD recorders stacked so high that they threatened to collapse. Several TV monitors were lying around the ash-covered floor, each displaying a different hard-core porn drama. The playpen was completed by computer towers and monitors armed with various software and applications designed to crack copy protection and re-master recordings.

The Movie Man sat perched on the edge of a captain’s chair over a keyboard, which he played like an instrument. A cigarette dangled from his lip, two more lay burning, forgotten, in his ashtray.

He turned his head quickly as they entered. “What is it Buddy?” he asked, annoyed, with a raspy voice, bringing up flem as he spoke. His face was long and drawn, with the sickly pallor of someone who hadn’t seen the sun in decades.

“This guy says that Russ sent him, is he full of shit? Cause if he is I can work him over a bit.”

The Movie Man spun in his chair to face him, smirking. “Not today, Buddy. He’s been expected.”

Buddy shrugged and left the room. The Movie Man gestured for him to sit in an old lawn chair sitting in the far corner of the room. Once he was seated the film dealer stood and crossed the room. He stood directly in front of him. A pistol was visible tucked into the front of his dirty jeans. He held out his hand and snatched the merchandise from his trembling hands. He slapped it into the nearest deck and stood leaning over the TV screen as the depraved recording began to play.

Throughout it all, the screams, the blood and the brutality, his expression didn’t change. He appeared bored, like he was watching a re-run of Bewitched for fiftieth time. It was over in twenty minutes and for a while he stood there silently, then he began to slow clap his hands together.

“Excellent material.” He said. Then he crossed the room and dialed the combination of a safe containing riches beyond his wildest dreams.

Ned called himself an investigative reporter. If he had made better grades in school he would be a lawyer and spend his time chasing ambulances and coaching plaintiffs for perjured testimonies. Instead, he spent his nights sitting in his car perched over his police scanner. The police had just begun to use a scrambler on their transmissions to foil people like him, but he had paid good money to an information brokers who socially engineered the proper decryption sequences from a gullible clerk at the company who had supplied the police with the technology.

He always made a point to arrive at the scene of a serious crime before the police and take footage. The local newspapers paid good money for such footage, and were always uncertain of his identity, for the record.

Tonight his car roared to the scene of a horrific murder. He pulled his car into an alley next to the scene of the crime. He took his life into his hands by climbing a rusty fire escape that swayed around under his weight. He had been a break-and-enter artist before he got his first byline, so he had no problem prying open the bathroom window and squeezing himself through.

The scene of the crime was in the bedroom, and when he opened the door, he nearly threw up. He had taped many violent crimes in his time, but this one was particularity gruesome. Forcing himself to stop gagging, he held his portable video camera to his eye and began to record the entire vista.

In his line of work, timing was crucial. Personally, he believed timing was the central force in all our lives. In a world where electronic media has fractured time, where a single song could include instruments recorded separately then combined into a fragment of time ten minutes long. In a world where a horrible crime could be faked on video for profit and cause that crime to take place to be documented and rebroadcast several hours later, time had become the only standard that can truly measure the real world.

For instance, he knew that the local cops had a response time of five minutes, and that he would hear the sirens shrieking within four. This gave him two minutes to make his recording, climb back out the window, rappel down the rusty ladder, and drive away, just as the flashing red lights could be seen pulsating down the road.

The sign on the door of the upscale office read Nova Enterprises. Behind the door was a criminal enterprise, one so profitable that they could afford a suite in an office building sitting in the center of the cities financial district. In the inner office, a man they called Mouse sat perched over his keyboard pecking away at it with incredible speed.

Mouse had been a computer security expert at the local police department before a very bizarre case went south. He was made a scapegoat for the failure. Disillusioned, he found work with the local mob. At first he merely monitored on-line gambling systems and calculated amazingly accurate odds, but soon he began taking custom jobs worthy of a member of the computer elite.

Outside in the sparsely furnished lounge, the Sergeant sat with his army boots crossed on the conference table, sucking a cigarillo as if it was the last one on earth. “Is he finished already?” he asked impatiently.

He was a man of action, and couldn’t stand waiting for streetlights, let alone for Mouse to finish his complex task. He was constantly, compulsively looking at his watch in order to separate time into small, easily manageable portions. He was a former commando in a special ops unit conducting black ops in Central America. He had been politely asked to accept an honorable discharge after a shipment of heroin mysteriously vanished off the hold of a smuggling vessel bound for Florida. All that was left was the evidence of a bloody massacre that left every member of the boat’s crew dead. He was able to make the transition to civilian life very easily, and was the second member of their team.

“Its over when its over, buddy.” The Professor snapped in reply, staring out of window at the swarms of little people playing out their little lives, oblivious to the people who pulled their strings. In this neighborhood, most of them were very wealthy, but not wealthy enough to truly be in control.

His surly attitude constantly grated on the other two, but he was the best at what he did, and was bigger than the two of them weighed together. He stood at six foot nine and arms the size of telephone poles. He came from slums, but had pulled himself up from the gutter and managed to earn a Masters Degree in Psychology. After he graduated he wound up back on welfare, so he fell back on his street smarts and soon became a master assassin, a hit man for whoever could pay in the millions. He still dressed like a college professor, with a tweed jacket and an Oxford tie.

The three of them were known as Double Cross, and worked for a very steep commission from their office in the wealthiest area of town.

Geek had made it very clear that no one was to enter his inner sanctum, so they would always wait outside until his work was done.

When he emerged they both sat up, and he began to talk in his usual roundabout manner.

“Have you been to any movies lately?” he asked without waiting for a reply, “ the Science Fiction stuff, with all the far-out effects? It’s all done on a blue screen, it all happens in cyber-space, a totally synthetic reality. Soon every moviemaker, even ones who do realistic stories, will be creating virtual settings. Even the actors will be fake, it will all be a complete illusion, and any loser will be able to sell his car and invest the money in a movie.” He dramatically slapped a disk down on the table. “This guy for instance, somehow he found himself a customer who dealt in snuff films and ripped him off to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a very clever forgery. The pixel compression rate gave him away.”

The Sergeant jumped to his feet like he had heard a starting gun. “Ok, then, we just need to find the girl and bring her to our own director. The set has already been built.”

Without another word, the three left the office and went to work.

The easiest way for a crook to get caught is by living beyond his means. The police call it ‘conspicuous consumption’. If a convenience store clerk is seen driving around in a Porsche, he’s obviously up to no good. That being the case, he had spent the last twelve hours with a giant neon arrow over his head. After an evening of generous tipping at several local bars, he called himself a limo to take him home to the roadside hotel where he had parked the night before. He lugged in a case of champagne, turned on the television and reached for the phone. He began to dial the number of a high-class escort service when he saw the news bulletin on the TV.

His blood turned cold and his face drained of color. He saw the set he had used in his film. He saw the blood splatter he artfully painted on the walls, and he saw her body on the bed. He scrambled for the remote control and turned on the sound.

“…is known as a ‘snuff film’, an actual murder recorded and sold on the black market. The victim has been identified as a Canadian woman. Police are withholding her identity until her family can be notified. They are studying the tape as we speak, and have issued an alert for this man…”

His face then filled the screen. It was his old police mug shot; he was sporting a scruffy beard and a swollen black eye. He hoped his appearance had changed enough to go unrecognized for as long as it took to sort the entire mess out. He hurriedly packed his bags, pocketed all the money he had spread on the bed, and ran out to his car.

There were three men gathered outside his late-model Honda. One was sitting on the hood, taking deep drags off a cigarillo. One was standing nearby, a skinny man in a trench coat whose entire attention was absorbed by a computer notepad, which he poked at compulsively. The last man stepped in his path as he left the hotel room and loomed over him like a specter of death, all three hundred pounds of him.

Without a word from any of them, the Professor grabbed him roughly by both arms and eased him back into his room. He wisely offered no resistance, he knew he had just been caught and saw no reason to struggle. The other two followed closely behind.

Once they were inside, the massive tank of a man guided him to one of the seats and roughly threw him down. The three of them stood looming over him, saying nothing, waiting for him to speak.

“This is all wrong,” he stammered, “All wrong. The whole thing wasn’t real. I faked the entire thing. She isn’t really dead. She’s alive. I can give you her number if you want to call her. She’ll set everything straight. I guarantee it.”

The Sergeant held out his hands in a calming gesture. “Yes, yes, we know. It’s all a big understanding. I’m sure everything will work itself out, but it’s going to be a huge hassle for you, testifying in court that you pulled this scam, and accepting all that money from people you knew were criminals. A lot of people will want to hang you high, even if it was all a fake. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

He shook his head.

“Good, that means you’re a reasonable man. Don’t you think so, guys?” He said, turning to his friends. They all murmured in agreement. “You must have made a huge sum of money. Why, a snuff film must be worth thousands of dollars. Isn’t that right guys?”

“Yes, thousands.” The Professor replied.

“So if you gave us the money, we could give you a ride out of town and you can disappear until everything works itself out.”

He nodded eagerly. His head felt numb. The situation had spun out of control and he grabbed the lifeline he had been thrown for dear life. He saw these men as his saviors. He wasn’t able to question anything they said, or turn down any offer they dangled in his face.

He showed them the briefcase that contained his loot, and gave them all the loose cash he had accumulated over his all-night spending binge. He gave them everything, and was eager to leave when he was done.

They led him to their car. It was a solid black sedan. The Sergeant sat beside him and the Mouse took the wheel, with the Professor spilling out of the seat beside him.

The three of them bantered ironically about movies, about special effects and how easily the public could be fooled as the sedan left the suburban tangle of malls and fast food joints with late night drive-throughs and entered a thick patch of woodland, far from prying eyes .To his ears, they began to seem less like a bunch of reasonable guys giving some poor slob a break, and more like a cat playing with a captured bird before they swallowed it whole.

Soon, the car pulled from the two-lane highway on to an abandoned logging road. The ancient woods could only be seen by the glare of the sedan’s headlights. He squirmed in his seat.

“Hey, guys.” He asked nervously, “Can I see some identification?”

The sergeant laughed, “Hear that, guys? He wants to see our badges.”

“Maybe he thinks we’re dirty cops.” The Professor replied. They all laughed heartily.

It wasn’t long before the car pulled to a halt. When the headlights were extinguished the entire scene was shrouded in darkness, and the three men drew their guns. The Sergeant pushed him roughly out of the car so the Professor could grab him roughly by the scuff of his neck and drag him into the woods. The other two followed, so that they could all see this matter to its end.

He struggled in vain as he was dragged for several feet into the thicket. The Professor then threw him to the ground. “Get on your knees!’ he barked, training his forty-five automatic at his head. He had no choice but to comply. “Put your hands behind your head!”

He complied and waited for death.

“Do you know the name of the girl in your video?” the Professor asked.

“Nancy.” He replied.

‘Wrong, that was one of her pseudonyms. Her real name was Charlotte, Charlotte Burk. She’s dead now, and she died in exactly the same manner as she did your little film. Anyone who tries to fool our employers gets hurt. She got hurt, and now you will too.”

He sat there, prone, and waited for the gunshot that would finish his life. “Bastards.” He muttered under his breath.

‘We’re bastards, are we?” the Professor asked. He always liked to engage in theoretical discussion with his victims. People seemed to only consider philosophic matters when they are at the edge of certain death. “What about you? A young woman is dead because of all your fucking around, and you haven’t expressed the slightest iota of concern or remorse. All you could think of was saving your own sorry ass. We are bastards, yes, but so are you.”

He let out a low moan in response.

“What do you think will happen when I pull the trigger? Will you go to the pearly gates, or to the land of milk and honey? Not likely. You’ll go straight to hell just like the rest of us. Do you want to know what hell really is? It is the complete absence of God. We have reached the point where God wants nothing to do with us; we’re on our own. Our only God is wealth and power. The wealthy and powerful rule absolutely and give no milk of mercy and kindness to the likes of us.”

“Why do you always try to debate with people before you shoot them.” The Sergeant asked impatiently. “Just shoot him, will you.”

“Yes,” the Mouse added, “you can’t talk him to death.”

“Very well.”

A shot echoed, unheard, through the woods and his lifeless body collapsed on the ground. The three troubleshooters got back in the car and roared away.

Not only do all sorts of weird coincidences affect our lives, and tie all our lives together in diabolical knots, but, in the information age, where strangers around the globe can connect with each other effortlessly, these knots can be tied at a speed rivaling that of light. In the end, we are all connected and all our actions affect others. It has always been that way, but now it is far more easily seen.